Olivia Grace and Perculia interviewed Lead Game Designers Cory Stockton and Ion Hazzikostas at 1 pm PDT, the livestream is over but we have the YouTube video below.

The hour-long interview covered the pre-expansion patch, itemization in Warlords of Draenor, Garrisons, Legendary Questline, World Events, and Professions.

We also have some hotfixes for October 17th at the end of the blog, covering hunter buffs, fixes to some old-world encounters, and a fix for raid items that were losing item levels.

Interview Summary

Serrinne liveblogged the following summary as we conducted the interview:

Patch, combat, squish scaling - 2:05 -Pre-expansion patch has changed more in terms of gameplay than any expansion patch in the past.

-Devs are paying attention to feedback and metrics to make sure all the kinks of the patch get ironed out before Draenor releases.

-It's been a very busy patch week!

-Combat against lower level content is being monitored. Level-up content appears to be fixed but they are still looking at lower level raid content combat.

-The focus now on balance is level 100 but level 90 outliers are being looked at. Balance at 90 in Siege of Orgrimmar probably won't be perfect but targetted class adjustments are incoming.

-We've been trying to err on the side of things being easier for the interim period at 90, until WOD releases. Some things should be easier now and you should try Siege at a higher difficulty than you were used to.

Changes to your character - 8:00-Players should be using this time to get used to the changes coming in Warlords. Using this time as a chance to get set up for the future.

-Tanking and healing: You shouldn't be relearning your entire role because things should be settling down now with hotfixes to mobs.

-The main change with healing was actually the change in Player Character health pool instead of changes to healing, per say.

Pre-Launch event - 12:00-WOD Pre-launch event is themed to pull you into the story right away, using the scene of the Dark Portal invasion. They liked the zone experiences versus just a scenario experience.

-They wanted new players or long time returning players to jump right into new content, Warlords of Draenor content, hence the Blasted Lands quest line and the level 90 UBRS.

-Possible holiday support coming to your Garrison, like holiday decorations.

Explanation and Concerns Re: Itemization and New Stat System - 17:00-Re: "Random stats" - Ion wants to remind you all that items have fixed stats. They are extending the "Warforged" system developed in MOP with random tertiary stats.

-The reason for the expansion of this system is to keep farm content interesting, where you could always possibly get an upgrade.

-They do know there is always a danger in burning out. The new tertiary stat system is intended to make things more interesting, make item choices more interesting, not to burn you out on farming that one particular item. They want to get away from "completing a checklist" of gear.

-The odds of these random tertiary stats making a difference to raid completion races "pales in comparison" to basic drop luck, with much less impact.

-Item level range will be comparable to the previous expansions.

Garrisons and Item Acquisition - 24:25-The mission system in Garrisons requires a process, and this means you won't immediately be getting raid gear from Garrisons. "There is a ramp built into the system."

-The goal is to allow non-raiders to gear up through Garrisons. Your character also makes a difference to what you can get from Garrison missions. "This is a drop in the bucket." "This will not directly impact progression raids."

-What can you get from the Highmaul caches from Garrison missions? You cannot get weapons or trinkets.

-To get the higher difficulty boxes, you need to have had at least a few weeks of kills in a given difficulty in the raid to even be eligible for getting the mission.

Garrisons and Raiding - 28:54 -Stockton: Any system we put into WoW can lead to "the perfect way to do it." But there is a lot of depth to the Garrisons that may not be so obvious. A lot of Garrison building bonuses aren't readily apparent in the tooltips and can't be quantified. As you're playing, you will find those things.

-Garrisons will be very useful in reflecting your own character and playstyle.

-Lots of buildings may appeal to raiders, lots are great for gold. Armory gives you a free roll every week and the Barn gives you access to high end feasts, for example.

-Possible changes coming to the Barn so that may not be the only way to get Savage Feasts.

Garrisons and Time Commitments - 33:40-Garrisons are meant to feel like your character hub. Not logging in every day won't be a huge detriment, the available quests and benefit of the Garrisons will be available. This is the idea behind work orders- you can send them off and don't have to check every few hours to make sure they are ready.

-Some followers have ways to make this easier like opening a mission table out in the world. Also you don't have to do a Garrison follower mission right away, they remain available for some time.

-Garrisons are designed to appeal to lots of different types of players.

-You can invest a lot of time or a little time. It adds depth to the world at your own pace.

Garrison Outposts - 37:22-Garrison Outposts are integrated into the leveling process, which has changed somewhat from Blizzcon 2013. These outpost buildings send you on a quest chain that award you with buffs for that zone.

-Garrison Outpost completion awards a token that you can trade in in Ashran for one free blueprint for one medium or one large building.

-Garrison Outposts are optional but do offer awesome perks for the outdoor zones.

-"The story of Draenor is the story of you raising an army" - the Garrison Outposts are an example of this.

-A ton of effort and changes have gone into the new profession system. Building the Garrison building, doing the work orders, using off-profession buildings are the core of this new system.

-Offline progression of professions works with your Garrison through, for example, work orders.

-Using buildings for which you have the profession is an efficiency increase. The benefits to leveling a profession is faster crafting and higher item lvl items.

-Profession game play is now focused on crafting instead of combat bonuses. You can make higher quality goods at a faster rate.

-Profession buildings also have a lot of flavour items at level 2. Engineering toys with a day duration, Tailoring standards, and free potions, for example.

-The equipped limit for crafting items was to continue to foster interaction with getting items from trying other activities. Best items for an LFR raider won't be a full set off the AH.

Legendary Questline - 47:00-Legendary quest line will be introduced much sooner - in fact, before you are even max level you will start the quest line.

-Because there are 2 slots for rings, it won't feel unpleasant to see rings drop in raid.

-"Win a BG was not the greatest choice for the Mists legendary" because it felt out of your control.

-Drop acquisition steps: more fun to collect a large number of steadily dropping items vs. a smaller number of rare items.

-They liked being able to update it every patch in a way that felt connected to a story.

-The legendary ring from Khadgar will only be available during Warlords of Draenor.

-Possible addition of traditional legendary acquisition! To be determined.

Class Quests - 50:34 -Class quests are a tough decision to make since they only affect a small number of players. But they are definitely possible for the future. They are a good way to give away things that make sense.

Character Models - 51:59-Blood elf models are in progress. ASAP.

-They are watching feedback re: Models for possible future updates. But at a certain point, they do need to be locked down.

-Changes will maybe come in the form of more facial choices.

Faerie Dragon Plushie and BlizzCon Virtual Ticket Giveaway

We've got two of the awesome Faerie Dragon plushies to give away - these are usually only available to people who have BlizzCon tickets or Virtual Tickets, but we're going to give them to anyone - no need for a BlizzCon ticket or Virtual Ticket to win! You can see the plushie to the right, it's similar to the one Perculia has in her backdrop for Wowhead Weekly, but a different color. Its tail has a wire in it so you can wrap it around things!

And we've got four Virtual Tickets to give away! The virtual ticket gives you access to live streams of all the BlizzCon panels, and exclusive DirecTV broadcasts in between them, as well as the chance to watch all the tournaments taking place over the weekend.

You'll also get on-demand video of anything you missed. Not only that, but you'll receive all the virtual items: the adorable Grommloc murloc pet, a Hearthstone Card Back, Diablo transmogs, a Heroes of the Storm mount, and Starcraft portraits and decal! And you'll be able to buy the exclusive items in the BlizzCon store!

Winners will be picked on Thursday, October 23rd. If Virtual Tickets are not giftable at that point, we'll send you Battle.net gift card codes for that amount to your email used for Wowhead registration.

October 17th Hotfixes

Hotfixes continue with some buffs (notably to hunters), some nerfs to legendary procs, and some fixes to old world encounters not scaling correctly as well as a particularly nasty bug where Heroic, Mythic, and LFR items were changing into Normal-mode versions.

Commenti

Commento di mitfry

Could you ask if they are gonna fix and rework some of the new models and their animations (night elf run animation for example) or are all the ingame models final already?

Commento di blupache

on 2014-10-17T15:53:43-05:00

Really hope they follow through on widening access to Savage Feasts.

It's fine to have a top-end food access method other than just cooking, let those who hate it opt out.

But cooks should be able to cook the good stuff. It's food, they're cooks, c'mon ;)

Edit: And what I'm enjoying most in 6.0.2 is being able to throw together alt/social 'heroic' raids without having to bother about precise numbers - raid leading them just became so much more relaxing =)

Commento di codered81

on 2014-10-17T15:57:07-05:00

I'm assuming the final raid will incorporate our army we built and raised from our garrison.

Commento di PragmaticSoul

on 2014-10-17T16:01:20-05:00

Could you ask if they are gonna fix and rework some of the new models and their animations (night elf run animation for example) or are all the ingame models final already?

Ugh. When my orcs run now, it's like they're waddling...

Commento di PragmaticSoul

on 2014-10-17T16:06:57-05:00

During this period of transition, could we get back the "stuck at level 90, experience rewards converted to gold"? I lost almost half of my gold income from dailies because I'm no longer at max level, but I can't earn experience yet either.

Commento di phazed

on 2014-10-17T16:16:01-05:00

If I've just watched this live, how come perculia posted the brief on what was discussed 1hr 35mins ago? Have we been fooled and this was pre-recorded?

Commento di SoCalWoWGal

on 2014-10-17T16:19:57-05:00

If I've just watched this live, how come perculia posted the brief on what was discussed 1hr 35mins ago? Have we been fooled and this was pre-recorded?

It was probably just a summary of the show notes that was made prior to the show going on air.

Commento di codered81

on 2014-10-17T16:21:29-05:00

Class quests don't actually affect a portion of players. Players can play all classes.

Commento di phazed

on 2014-10-17T16:24:16-05:00

If I've just watched this live, how come perculia posted the brief on what was discussed 1hr 35mins ago? Have we been fooled and this was pre-recorded?

It was probably just a summary of the show notes that was made prior to the show going on air.

And yet she knew in advance what all the answers were going to be? It smells fishy...

Commento di Shydow

on 2014-10-17T16:29:32-05:00

Whenever a developer says "maybe" or "possible," I assume that they really mean "possible, but not gonna happen. We're really busy implementing 5% of the PTR feedback we received."

Commento di trest

on 2014-10-17T16:32:36-05:00

If I've just watched this live, how come perculia posted the brief on what was discussed 1hr 35mins ago?

This post/article was first made then. It was subsequently updated with the summary of points.

Commento di perculia

on 2014-10-17T16:35:31-05:00

Serrinne liveblogged as we were conducting the interview. She did a great job!

Commento di quiztic

on 2014-10-17T16:43:52-05:00

I guess we are not getting a updated Hallows End tomorrow since they refused to say so... :(

Commento di diddlywhat

on 2014-10-17T16:49:13-05:00

I'm assuming the final raid will incorporate our army we built and raised from our garrison.

I highly doubt it. In the first place it makes no sense that we're the first to establish a base of operations in our garrison yet are immediately lead to an existing base that is much larger (Ashran) via a quest.

I wouldn't expect much consistency in 'lore'. It is what it is.

Commento di PragmaticSoul

on 2014-10-17T16:58:07-05:00

I'm assuming the final raid will incorporate our army we built and raised from our garrison.

Not a chance in heck. The howls of protest from the top-end raiders who'd ignored garrisons for the whole expansion would cause the world to tremble...

Commento di Serrinn

on 2014-10-17T18:21:47-05:00

You may have your time zones confused, I live blogged the interview as it was happening :)

Commento di baracuda1337

on 2014-10-17T18:35:49-05:00

I don't really play shaman a lot but I think they should get a class quest in Draenor, it really fits.

Commento di Tredain

on 2014-10-17T20:00:54-05:00

Well, that's enlightening about the Crafted Gear limit at least. So, we can make some powerful items now without raid drops, but the tradeoff is only 3. I still feel like that needs to be tweaked in some fashion, such as the problem with dual wielders. As a crafter I also kind of feel it's a little too limiting? I'd rather have fewer strong pieces I could make and a bevy of lower ilevel items with no equip limit, kind of like MoP.

But then, I don't think there was any time I wore more than 2 crafted pieces at any particular time so we'll see how this does in practice.

Commento di Alisrafil

on 2014-10-17T20:08:45-05:00

So... They said they didn't want to do the same as for MoP where the prepatch event story came from a book and people didn't know what was happening...

So far if you didn't read War Crimes you're just as clueless as to what the hell happened as we were if we didn't read Tides of War.

It would've been very nice (and it annoyed me to no end that it wasn't) if they had included a recap of what happened to Garrosh, how did he get to old Draenor, why, etc.

Commento di PragmaticSoul

on 2014-10-17T20:10:09-05:00

Well, that's enlightening about the Crafted Gear limit at least. So, we can make some powerful items now without raid drops, but the tradeoff is only 3. I still feel like that needs to be tweaked in some fashion, such as the problem with dual wielders. As a crafter I also kind of feel it's a little too limiting? I'd rather have fewer strong pieces I could make and a bevy of lower ilevel items with no equip limit, kind of like MoP.

But then, I don't think there was any time I wore more than 2 crafted pieces at any particular time so we'll see how this does in practice.

We can gear up by buying dropped BoE gear (e.g., dropped BoE gear that requires level 100 is iLvl 580), having our followers bring back the occasional piece (and, if we have the right three followers and the rare missions for raid gear shows up, we can apparently (?) get raid gear), we can do the Strategic Assets daily quests to fill out a few pieces of gear (six slots of gear available, but it takes weeks to get one slot--make sure you don't fill one of these slots with crafted gear!).

Also, alchemists' trinket doesn't seem to be on the same "only 3" limitation as other crafted gear, and it's iLvl 620 (rare).